


Take My Hand (Take My Whole Life Too)

by wkemeup



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Song Lyrics, Weddings, and getting married!!!, bucky barnes is soooo in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22977979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wkemeup/pseuds/wkemeup
Summary: Bucky waits at the end of the aisle for the love of his life (heavily inspired by the wedding scene in Crazy Rich Asians)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76





	Take My Hand (Take My Whole Life Too)

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot recommend the cover of Falling In Love With You by Kina Grannis enough!! Its the version I picture for this fic.

Bucky’s hands were stuffed into his pockets, pulling at the seams of expensive threads as if the unraveling string could release a piece of tension in his chest, let him breathe a little easier, let his head feel a little less numb. Leather wingtips of his shoes were tight around his toes, the tie draped around his neck a little too snug, sweat beading at his temples. His breaths were heavy in his chest, thick like anvils on his lungs as he swayed from one foot to the other.

It smelled faintly of lavender and incense as he managed to take in a shallow breath; memories of Sunday mornings with his Ma and sister traveling into the city adorned in baggy suits and frilly dresses, a pout on his face through his teenage years. Stained glass windows to his left, marble statues to his right; colorful light filtered through the room and touched against the faces of stone, sun kissed, heaven sent.

His hands gripped to fists in his pockets and Bucky gazed out to the rows of old, wooden pews. It was filling up quickly with women dressed in beautiful gowns and men in black ties, talking quietly amongst themselves, stealing looks to the back of the room and then up to Bucky. Nervous excitement, joyful smiles he wasn’t used to be on the receiving end of.

“You alright there, man?” Steve asked to his left, nudging his shoulder teasingly. Bucky nodded quickly, maybe a little too quickly, because Steve started to chuckle under his breath. “There’s still time to run for it if you want? I can get the car started.”

“Not a chance,” Bucky replied without hesitation, his voice rough and raw like stone, unused all morning. He nodded to himself, pulling in a deep breath as he stared down at the double doors at the end of the aisle. “I’m marrying the love of my life today.”

“Yes, you are,” Steve nodded, smiling to himself as Bucky kept his gaze focused on the wooden doors. He patted Bucky gently on the shoulder. “Take in all in, buddy. You deserve it. After everything you’ve been through, to come out of all of it and find _this?_ Love and happiness and all those things you never thought you’d see again? Who would’ve thought, huh?”

Certainly not Bucky.

But Steve nudged Bucky’s side because he believed from the very start, from the moment he’d introduced the two of you the day you moved into the tower nearly a year prior and he saw the slight part of Buckt’s lips, the rendered shock on his face as he stood frozen, staring at you as you extended your hand to him. Something had changed in him that day, like a spark igniting a flame, a drop to a desert, the cry in a first breath. 

Your hand slipped into his, a shy smile on your face as you met his eye, and Bucky didn’t know what to say. His voice was sandpaper in his throat and Steve was the one who told you his name, though Bucky was almost certain you already knew. Your eyes only flashed to the reflective panels of his left arm once upon walking up to him and even then, it had been in admiration, never fear, never disgust.

Your name was honey on his tongue and he repeated it a few times after you left, as he held his hand close to his chest where you’d touched him, like velvet and silk, and he wondered how something so tender and kind could stand to touch the flesh of a monster.

You turned over your shoulder as Steve guided you around the floor, introducing you to the team, and your eyes kept returning to Bucky from the distance, even as you met Sam and Wanda, then Tony and Natasha.

He’d met your eye from across the room and for the first time in years, he felt the corner of his lips push to his cheeks; aching in their disuse, a little worn for wear, but it made you smile even wider, crinkling up by your eyes, chewing on the edge of your lip. It warmed like the heat of a gentle fire to his chest, a relief sweeping through the tension he carried. It was your smile that started to pull him from the darkest parts of himself.

He wasn’t quite sure how it happened, how you managed to start peeling away at the wall he kept built carefully around himself, fortified under brick and stone and standing so tall he no longer could see sunlight around him.

Brick by brick, they started to disappear with the smell of coffee filtering through the kitchen as the sun rose and he’d stumble out of his room after a night of restless sleep to find you waiting at the table with two cups of freshly brewed coffee, tapping your fingers against the wood anxiously, a bounce of your knee underneath. So sweetly nervous until the moment you saw him and everything in your body seemed to relax.

He lost a brick from the walls around him as he sat down beside you each morning, first under comfortable silence, until enough mornings passed and soon, the kitchen was filled with laughter before the sky had filtered to an even blue. 

The bricks disappeared every time you laughed, every time you smiled at him from across the room when you thought he wasn’t paying attention, every time a flush would touch your skin as he’d catch you staring and you’d look away bashfully, only to return home to ocean blue and he’d smile back for you.

They disappeared as your hip pressed up close to his on the couch and you fell asleep against his shoulder on movie nights, a bowl of popcorn slipping from your fingers. They crumbled with every soft snore, every time you curled against him, finding comfort in the cool embrace of his left arm as he brushed the hairs from your eyes.

Brick by brick, you managed to dig through the cement under brittle nails and calloused hands, tearing away another piece of the protective guard he’d mounted in his decades under Hydra until suddenly, steady streams of light started to peak their way into the darkness, until the touch of it warmed his skin, stung a little in his eyes, until the shadows no longer had a home around him.

The first time you’d kissed him had been an accident.

Something so innocent, so familiar as you pulled back from the warm hold of his embrace under fuzzy blankets and movie marathons, and touched the sides of his face. Lost in the way he was watching you, caught up in the dim lighting of the kitchen, the haze of sleepiness, you’d kissed him. 

Short and gone in an instant once you realized what you’d done and you raced off to your room with frantic apologies under your breath. He tried to go after you, tell you how badly he wanted you to kiss him again like that, but there wasn’t time. He had a mission in the morning and you’d boarded yourself up behind the walls of your room.

By the time he returned a week later, the line bordering between friendship and something more was all but shattered as he stumbled off the quinjet with a limp on his right side, a nasty scar over his forehead and an exhaustion dragging him under after four days of no contact, no reassurance, and complete radio silence. 

You had raced into his arms in tears and threw yourself to his embrace, holding onto him like he was your only lifeline. He had stumbled back a bit at the impact of it, surprised, and you didn’t give him a chance to question it before your lips were on his. 

The start of it all, the tailspin into the unknown.

It all happened so quickly after that. The nervous dates with pretty red dresses and disheveled ties, the hands intertwining as you walked together for hours through Brooklyn under starlit skies, the kisses outside your bedroom, the cozy embrace on the couches.

The ‘I love you’s. The falling between sheets, bare and desperate for one another. The question that scared him more than any mission ever could. The ‘yes’ that changed his life forever. 

He fell in love with you faster than he knew how to catch himself.

It was a freefall through the heart of an open abyss. It was stepping off the ledge knowing there was nothing securing you to the surface. It was a leap of faith, an instinct of trust, a determination of love. When he fell for you, there was no fear, no panic. There was only absolute certainty.

He loved you. You loved him.

There was nothing else. No amount of time that could make his love for you more real, more acceptable to what others deemed appropriate for this level of commitment. He spent too much of his life not being able to make decisions for himself, too much of his life without the autonomy to say ‘no’ or ‘yes’, his freewill stripped from him like a piece of his soul.

So, this was his choice, every day. Every morning, every night, every hour. He chose you.

“Anyone check on Y/n yet?” Sam quipped up from beside Steve, tugging at the neck of his tie. “We sure she didn’t make a run for it?”

 _“Sam,”_ Steve warned, but Bucky started to laugh, feeling the tension slip away.

“I’m just saying,” Sam shrugged with that teasing grin of his, “I’m pretty sure we were all shocked she agreed to a lifetime with this nutjob. I wouldn’t blame the girl for jumping ship.”

“She’s coming,” Bucky replied evenly, a soft smile on his face as he kept his eyes on the back doors. “She’ll be here.”

There was no doubt, not a single trace of it running through his bloodstream. The tension faded from his shoulders and he realized with a quick look in Sam’s direction, that he’d done it on purpose, reminded Bucky exactly why he was standing where he was to begin with, reminded him of the unbreakable trust he had in you.

A moment of peace, of ease, and then—

The soft strumming of a guitar began to filter through the church, high up into the arches as a hush fell over the crowd. Bucky’s stomach fell, like at the highest peak of a free fall, and he straightened his back, tried to fix his already perfectly straightened tie, hands shaking just a little. The guests all turned to the doors as wooden archways slowly parted and Bucky exhaled a shaky breath.

“You’ve got this,” Steve whispered beside him. “Best day of your life, right?”

Bucky nodded, turning to find Steve smiling at him, Sam giving him a short thumbs up with that cheeky grin of his. His brothers, his family. He exhaled again, this time more even, like a weight of release on his chest, and turned to the parted doors.

A gentle voice carried over the hushed whispers of the crowd, light and breathy, heavenly, as Peter took his first step into the church.

**_Wise men say only fools rush in_   
** **_But I can’t help falling in love with you_ **

Awkward smile as he tried to make eye contact with every phone in the crowd, a slight flush of pink in his cheeks as he walked a little too quickly down the aisle. He wore a tie that matched the color of the flowers pinned to Bucky’s suit jacket and he paused for a moment by Tony and Pepper’s aisle as she begged him for a picture.

**_Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?  
_ ** **_If I can’t help falling in love with you_ **

Wanda stepped out into the open doors. Long, flowing brunette hair over her shoulders, braided in a crown from her face, she carried light pink roses and white dahlias in her hands. Dressed in a beautiful shade that reminded Bucky of cherry blossoms, she gave a soft glance to the crowd before she took her place beside Peter leading up to the alter.

**_Like a river flows surely to the sea  
_ ** **_Darling, so it goes_ _some things are meant to be_**

Then, Natasha. Lethal and cunning, dressed in soft pinks and a subtle smile on plump lips, an enigma within herself. She looked up to the woman sitting on the edge of a stool at the corner of the room, the one singing the beautiful song that had Bucky’s heart stammering so fast in his chest, he wasn’t quite sure how he was still on his feet.

She began to make her way down the aisle, a subtle glance to Steve from the corner of her eye before she found her place beside Wanda, leaving him to cough back a blush rising on his cheeks.

Then, a silence came over the crowd, the music lingering up into the highest peaks of the church as Bucky held his breath. A soft echo of the guitar nestling into his chest and falling into a pristine silence, Bucky watched as the crowd stood from their pews, turning to the back door, his heart pounding like thunder, loud enough that even the furthest row could hear it.

You stepped out into the opening and everything just… _stopped_. Time dissolving around him, the gasps of the crowd numb to his ears, and you paused under elaborate archways, framing you like a portrait to be admired amongst masterpieces. Dressed in a gown that touched your skin, floated along your curves, your body, the way his hands had; with a carefulness, a tenderness, unlike he’d ever seen.

Then, you smiled at him; something soft, subtle, filled with every rush of emotion swimming in his own chest. Stunning. Magical. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

A calmness swept over him, the nervous stuttering of his heart falling back into a gentle rhythm, his breaths even and full in his lungs. This was where he was meant to be.

You took your first step into the aisle.

**_So take my hand_ **

Tears welled in Bucky’s eyes, blurry as he tried to take in as much of this moment as he could. You chewed on the edge of rouge stained lips, disregarding the room full of people, of family and friends, as you kept your focus on Bucky in every step. He was the one you always ran to, his arms you sought out in a crowded room, his watchful smile to calm your nerves, and he was waiting for you. He was always there waiting for you.

**_Take my whole life, too_ **

In every step, he saw the days he spent curled up on the couch beside you, the nights pressed against you under sweat damped sheets from the demons in his sleep. He saw the dates at the sub shop in Queens and the coffee joint in Brooklyn. He saw the trust he put in you, the instant devotion, the internal instinct to give every piece of himself to you. He saw the free fall.

He saw the bricks you dismantled from the walls around his heart, the way you so carefully nurtured the most vulnerable pieces of him to something stronger, something protected and adored until he believed it himself.

**_For I can’t help falling in love with you_ **

You were within reach now and he extended a hand to you. Your fingers slipped into his palm, warm and soft and everything that every grounded him to this earth by a tether, and he guided you up the stairs to the alter beside him.

He let out a heavy breath, smiling through the tears in his eyes as he chuckled quietly, still unable to process how quickly you’d fallen into his life, how easily you turned him upside down and brought forth the pieces of himself he’d lost over the years.

Your hand touched the side of his face, gently wiping away his tears with a smile that must have ached from how constant it was, how all-encompassing and infectious, full of unbridled joy and love. This was where he was supposed to be, where everything in his life led to – _this moment_ – where you mouthed ‘ _I love you’_ because you couldn’t stand to hold it back another second.

He kissed the palm of your hand, an intimate gesture shared between you witnessed by friends and family in the crowd, and he whispered, “I love you, too.”

His home. His sweet girl who reminded him who he was under years of fortified walls caging him from sunlight. His whole heart.

A new start. A new life.

**_For I can’t help falling in love with you_ **


End file.
